Chapter Nineteen

THE MONSTROUS WAVE crashed over the ship, uprooting it from the mound and pitching it forward. Screaming colonists and Klingons were hurled on top of one another, and the ship shuddered and groaned like a beast that had been harpooned. Tree trunks beat on the hull like giant drumsticks wielded by Titans, and leaks showered the horrified passengers. Awful creaking noises nearly drowned out their terrified shrieks.

Wolm tried to cover the young children who had been strapped into makeshift seats, but she was slammed against the dark instrument panel. She shook her head and felt hands trying to lift her up. The ship rocked again, and Myra Calvert tumbled into her lap. Together the girls staggered to their knees and crawled back to the terrified children. They wrapped their thin arms around the little ones and held them as the ship continued to buck out of control and water sprayed them from overhead.

From a life support duct over the main bridge Data and Ensign Ro had just managed to make some lights flicker on when the tsunami hit. Ro lurched onto her stomach, gripped a bar with her good hand, and held on. The screaming below her was almost the worst sensation, and she dreaded the possibility that the ship might flip over. Back and forth they rocked with each succeeding wave, and it was like a terrible carnival ride she had once experienced.

“Troi to Data!” shouted Deanna over the android’s comm badge. “I’m at the lower bulkhead. Water has breached the cargo bay, and we can’t get the hatch shut!”

“On my way,” Data replied calmly. He turned back to Ro. “We can access the turbolift shaft from this duct and avoid the passengers below us.”

Ro followed the android, crawling on all fours down the filthy duct. Brackish water spewed into her hair from the darkness. She ignored the pain in her shoulder and the possibility that she would reopen her wound. If they all drowned inside this old can, a little blood wouldn’t matter much. She saw Data jump onto a cable that ran down the center of the turbolift and ride it to the bottom. Ro gritted her teeth and made the same leap. The pain of the thick cable hitting her chest was worse than the throb in her shoulder, but she held on, climbing down the cable toward the bottom deck of the old freighter.

She landed seconds after Data but found that he was gone. She saw where he had kicked out a grille to gain access to the lower corridor. Ro slipped through the grille and landed painfully on her still-tender ankle. Damn, she muttered to herself, she was a wreck. The ensign could hear voices ahead of her, and she skittered around a bend in the corridor to see a sight that chilled hen Deanna Troi and Raul Oscaras were pulling desperately on a bulkhead door, trying to close it, but filthy water was shooting from the edges. Judging by the pressure of the water they were fighting against, the entire cargo bay was already full.

Oscaras’s grimy face was puffed and reddened, and he looked about to pass out.

“The pressure seals have rotted!” he panted. “The door won’t stay shut!”

Data made no move to help them. “Please stand back,” he said.

“If we let go,” gasped Deanna, “it’ll flood in seconds!”

“Perhaps not,” answered Data. He reached to his belt and came away holding a long black whip. He adjusted his grip slightly, and the greenish tip of the whip began to glow and tremble.

“What the hell’s that?” growled Oscaras.

“A displacer,” answered Data. “It combines artificial intelligence with air pressure manipulation. Please observe.”

When Data stepped back and uncoiled the strange weapon Oscaras and Deanna got out of the way in a hurry. Water shot around the edges of the door as if shot from a fire hose, but Data snapped the displacer several times and drove the water back.

“Adjusting the air pressure is temporary,” he added.

In movements almost too rapid to see Data used both hands to twist the handle and enter a stream of commands to the weapon. Then he cracked the glowing whip over his head, and it glowed like live neon as it rippled across the corridor toward the door. He let go of the handle, and the glowing coil wrapped around the edge of the door. Data took two steps and, with his enormous strength, gripped the center wheel and yanked the door shut. The displacer pulsated for a moment as it settled into place where the rotted seal should have been. The flow of water had stopped completely.

The android stepped back, nonchalantly wiping the slime from his face. “It should hold for perhaps three hours,” he remarked. “We should fall back to the next bulkhead and secure it in a more conventional manner.”

“I bet you were practicing with that thing,” Deanna said hoarsely.

“For almost an entire hour,” admitted Data.

The vessel bucked again, throwing Ro off her feet. She groaned as her injured shoulder crashed into the deck. Then a hand reached under her arm and lifted her up like a rag doll.

“The bridge is flooding,” said Data. “We must return there.”

Captain Picard jumped to his feet as soon as they dropped out of warp and the gray planet came into view. “Helm,” he said, “standard orbit, bearing one twenty-eight Mach-two.”

“Aye, sir,” answered a young female ensign, playing the control panel in front of her. “Orbit in twenty-two seconds.”

Picard was glad to see that the mostly young and untried bridge crew was snapping to—in place of all the people who were missing. Of course, they were trained to do their duty, and a rescue was the most fundamental of all missions.

In fact, thought Picard, they were probably calmer than he, because they didn’t work closely with the people who were in danger. The replacement crew had certainly gotten him to Selva in less time than he had reason to expect.

“Try to raise New Reykjavik,” he ordered.

“I’m sorry, sir,” answered the tactical officer, “sensors show that area is underwater. Even the repeater is inoperable.”

“How soon before communicator range?”

“Ten seconds.”

Picard stood tensely in front of a viewscreen that was filling with a cloudy sphere. It looked as unfriendly now as the day he had first seen it. He paced for a second, then finally hit his comm badge.

“Picard to away team. Come in. Picard to away team.” He waited, scarcely drawing a breath.

“Data here,” answered the nonplussed android. “We are glad you have returned. In all, two hundred and twenty-eight are accounted for, although there are several injuries.”

“Where are you? How did you—” stammered Picard. “Never mind. Should we beam you aboard?”

“The sooner the better,” answered Data. “We are up to our knees in water.”

“All transporter rooms stand by,” barked Captain Picard. “Hold for coordinates.”

A cheer went up from all those standing around Commander Data, and word quickly spread to everyone crammed shoulder to shoulder on the bridge. Deanna could see humans and Klingons warmly shaking hands and slapping one another on the back.

The scene was even stranger once they started to disappear—Klingons and humans dissolving together into beams of light. Wolm squealed with delight when the transporter scrambled her molecules, but Turrok was an old hand and barely raised a shaggy eyebrow.

A hoarse voice said, “I’m sorry.” She turned to see a tearful Raul Oscaras.

“I’ve been wrong. I’m resigning. But I still have a strong back to devote to this planet. I thank you for saving it.”

The counselor nodded, but before she could say anything Raul Oscaras started to break up and turn into shimmering light. The hatred was breaking up and floating away just as surely, thought Deanna, and she smiled with satisfaction as the old freighter faded from view.

Twenty-four hours later Ensign Ro and Myra Calvert were sharing a root beer float with two straws in the Ten-Forward lounge. They were taking time out to sip their confection, which was making the flamboyant dark-skinned woman seated across from them extremely impatient.

“What happened next?” asked Guinan. “Don’t stop now.”

Ro shrugged. “We never found the body of Louise Drayton, or whoever she was. Or the eight colonists who stayed in the village. If the Klingons hadn’t kept that old ship intact, you’d still be looking for all of us.”

“Wow,” breathed Guinan. “And we think space is dangerous. I saw some of the colonists in here last night, and they said they were going back.”

“They’re rebuilding,” affirmed Myra. “Now that they know exactly how far inland a tsunami can reach, they know exactly where to build. There’s plenty of free lumber lying around, too.”

“But you’re not staying?” asked Guinan.

The red-haired twelve-year-old shook her head and smiled. “My dad and I have had enough adventure for a while. It’s back to Earth

and maybe Starfleet Academy in a few years.” She glanced with frank admiration at Ensign Ro.

“What about the Klingons?” asked Guinan. “How many of them decided to stay?”

“Almost all of them,” answered Myra. “They’re going to rebuild together. They have a lot they can show one another.”

Ro added, “A couple of the younger ones, Wolm and Turrok, decided to go with the Klingon vessel. They want to learn what they can from the empire and return home to Selva.”

The attractive Bajoran shook her head and admitted, “I’ve never felt like that about a place. But the colonists want to build something, and the Klingons have invested their entire lives in a battle to survive there. They have a lot in common, and both of them want to make amends.”

“Hmm,” said Guinan thoughtfully. “I’d better restock the synthehol. When Commander Riker gets back on board tomorrow he’s going to be hosting a celebration. I’m glad you’re back, Ro.”

“You were right,” remarked the Bajoran, “they needed me down there.”

“That’s all anyone wants,” said Guinan, “to feel needed.”

The bartender smiled and bustled off. As Myra slurped the last of the root beer float Ro gazed out the window at the blur of stars that rushed by at warp speed.

All her life, it seemed, she had felt inadequate —unable to prevent her father’s death or ease her people’s suffering, unable to get along and go along. Always the Other, the outcast. But that self-hate was just as destructive as the overt bigotry she had witnessed on Selva. If the settlers and Klingons could make peace with each other, she thought, perhaps she could make peace with herself.

It was worth a try.